


Time Is the Fire in Which We Burn

by Chronicler



Category: One Direction (Band), zayn malik - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Alternate Universe - Writer, Angst, Attraction, Bittersweet, British Character, British English, British Slang, Character(s) of Color, Facing the past, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, LGBTQ Character of Color, M/M, Moving On, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Referenced Bullying, Referenced queerphobia, Referenced racism, Referenced violence, Reminiscing, Reunions, School, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 11:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4389701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chronicler/pseuds/Chronicler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn Malik is an up-and-coming writer returning to his old secondary school for the opening of a library he donated money towards. But the truth is, school was horrific for him. He was bullied mercilessly for his race and sexuality, and he hates everyone and everything there. Trapped in painful memories, he falls apart, before an old face from the past turns up and tries to piece him back together.</p><p>Liam didn't have a good time in school himself, and somehow he's still stuck there, working as a P.E. teacher. But a chance encounter with Zayn means that things are suddenly looking up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Is the Fire in Which We Burn

**Author's Note:**

> It was 3 a.m. this morning, and I saw a post on tumblr with story prompts for short fics. I re-blogged it, and Courtney kindly picked the prompt 'School Reunion'. So this is for Courtney. But we don't have reunions here usually, so I hope it's close enough. And I got carried away. So I'm posting it on AO3.
> 
> This is also a test for myself, to see whether I can write, edit, and post a story all in one night, and then not fuck with it at all. So don't expect much from it! It's an experiment. Because I need to be quicker and let go.
> 
> Thanks to Bea for beta reading.
> 
> I'm sure I've left mistakes in it. Any feedback would be gratefully received.
> 
> Update: I've edited it and edited quite a bit to it since I first posted it. And AO3 keeps putting in a big gap that I keep taking out...
> 
> Poem 'Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day' By Delmore Schwartz
> 
> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171344
> 
> Sorry I deleted everything. I just couldn't handle the stress of bad comments and stuff. I'm a hot mess. But I'm posting this again for 6789998212. It's just short and not very good, but I felt bad if you didn't see it. Oh and I've edited it some more to try fix some of the problems with it.

_ _

_x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x_

_What am I now that I was then?_  
_May memory restore again and again_  
_The smallest colour of the smallest day:_  
_Time is the school in which we learn,_  
_Time is the fire in which we burn._

_~ Delmore Schwartz_

_x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x_

 

 _I hate this fucking place_ , Zayn thought to himself as he grabbed another coke from the buffet table with its cheap plastic tablecloth. _Why the fuck hasn’t someone spiked the drinks yet…?_

He looked around the massive room, the books lining it the only comfort, wondering why he came. It was all such a fucking joke, his old secondary school naming their new library after him. Suddenly they were interested in him now that he was the _Enfant terrible_ of the literary world, with his debut novel a worldwide smash and a movie in the works. But they never gave a fuck about him when he was actually a student here. When he got called a bent Paki terrorist and beaten up every day. When he got punched, kicked, bitten, and spat on.

He clenched his jaw and wished he hadn’t listened to his mum, hadn’t pretended to put the past behind him and donated money to this farce. _Just fuck ‘em, fuck ‘em all straight to hell._

‘ _Shit_ ,’ he muttered as his fist tightened too hard around the cheap plastic cup and it cracked, slicing his finger, the bubbly black liquid leaking out thickened by his blood. He slammed it down on the table, glaring as he wiped his hand on a tissuey napkin and then wrapped one around his finger, silently daring anyone to come over and speak to him.

Where the fuck were their ingratiating smiles when he locked himself in his bedroom too afraid to go to school? When he was cutting himself? When he had his fingers down his throat? When he was overdosing? Where the fuck where they then?

Face tightly locked in a mask of cold indifference, but eyes filled with fiery hatred, he fled down the corridor and into the boys toilets.

It looked the same as it had when he was a teenager: big and echoey, discoloured and falling apart. A row of empty stalls filled with ominous shadows lined one long wall. High, obscured windows made it look like a prison block, and unoriginal graffiti was scrawled everywhere. NO PUFFS ALOWED, someone had scribbled in big Scarlett letters beside the door, as though it had ever needed to be said, as though he couldn't still feel it in the air, making his skin crawl, how unwelcome he was.

He took a piss in the urinal, the yellowed porcelain a spiderweb of fine cracks, then washed his hands; the scratch on his finger stopped bleeding and numbed as he ran it under cold water, then rubbed his hands dry with paper towers.

He stood with his hands anchored at both sides of the cold sink and stared at his reflection in the scratched mirror, oxidized black advancing insidiously around the edges. He'd even shaved for this fiasco, and had his usually intricately dyed and styled hair shorn close to his scalp and left black. Tried to feign respectability. The decade he’d been gone from this place had been good to him, and he was still finely sculpted, still striking, but back here he just felt too pretty, too androgynous, too much of a target. How could he be in this hellhole again? How could he have been fucking stupid enough to come back?

Rage poured off him, fire through his veins. He could feel it seeping out, melting into the tiles, the bricks, adding to the misery he’d left behind. Thought he’d left behind.

But nothing changes. Not really. Nothing ever fucking changes. Someone should burn this shithole to the ground and salt the earth so nothing could grow back.

‘ _Fuck you all!_ ’ he told the world, voice too loud and echoey in the cavernous, empty room. The old panic was building and building, his meagre self-control burnt away. He had to do something, had to let the pain out before he exploded. He squeezed his eyes shut to block everything out, raised his hand and pulled it back, ready to smash the image mocking him: break everything to pieces. His body tense, coiled tight as he swung at the glass, ready to wipe himself out, to –

There was a clatter behind him, a blur in the dingy mirror, ‘ _Shit!_ ’ someone shouted, a strong hand simultaneously intercepting his fist with a thud. Another hand on his chest, arm around him, pulling him away from his impending collision, pulling him backwards against a solid body.

‘ _What the hell? Get your fucking hands off me!_ ’ Zayn wrenched his hand free and spun around, knew he was yelling, knew he was losing it.

‘Calm the fuck down, mate,’ the man said, his hold around Zayn loosening but not letting go.

Zayn struggled, all hard lines and sharp edges. Still too small, too thin, still a target, even now, even with all of his sudden wealth and success.

He pushed at the man who was too big, too strong.

Hands grabbed both his wrists, and the man manoeuvred him backwards, the cold of the sink seeping through Zayn’s clothes when it hit the small of his back.

Nothing ever fucking changes.

He kept struggling, hands clenched into fists, ready to fight, ready to run, ready to –

Through the haze of the past he caught sight of the present, the red mist fading. Saw a furrowed brow and soft, warm brown eyes so full of concern he felt like a fool.

Still tense, he stilled.

‘You okay?’ the man asked. ‘Can I let go now?’

Looking down Zayn realised the man had a loose hold of both his hands.

‘Yeah,’ Zayn said, pulling himself free, standing straight and pushing back his shoulders. ‘I’m fine.’ He licked his dry lips, not quite meeting the man’s eyes.

The man backed away, holding his hands in front of him, palms facing Zayn. ‘Course you are,’ he attempted an awkward smile. ‘Can, I, um, get anyone for you?’

‘Nah,’ Zayn said, ‘I came on my own. I wanted to, like, face my demons. They kinda won.’ He shrugged, trying to appear more nonchalant than he felt.

The man smiled, more successfully this time, but with such a sad look in his eyes when Zayn braved another glance at them.

‘Looked like you were gonna beat the shit out of your demons to me,’ he said.

‘Yeah?’ Zayn asked, trying not to fall into the welcoming warmth; people only let him down, especially here.

‘Yeah,’ the man was obviously trying to reassure him. To sooth him. But his deep voice was little too loud, a little too fast, a little too overcompensating. He wasn’t local, not with that accent; Brummie maybe, or Black Country, somewhere in the midlands.

‘How come you were here for my meltdown anyway? Did you follow me?’ Zayn asked.

‘No. Well, okay, yeah, but only because you looked upset when you left the party and I was worried. I'd been trying to find the nerve to come over to you all evening. Then I heard you yelling…’

‘I wasn’t yelling.’ Zayn bristled in embarrassment. ‘I was just… just talking to some old ghosts…”

‘Did they answer?’ The man looked a little confused, but still sweet and earnest.

‘Nah. And they say you’re only losing your marbles if they reply.’

‘Am I an old ghost too?’ he asked, and it Zayn’s turn to look confused. The man carried on speaking, sounding a bit sulky, ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

Zayn paused. Tried to slow his breathing, the fast pounding of his heart edging towards a normal rhythm. The flames setting him ablaze dowsed by the random kindness of a stranger. He rubbed at his lip with the side of his finger as he dared to finally study the man. He was wearing a suit too, but not as expensive as Zayn’s, which he'd bought at an intimidating tailors near where he lived in London and carried up to Bradford on the train.

But, as interfering as this man was, he looked good, Zayn supposed. Big. His chest broad under the cotton of his shirt and the polyester of his jacket, the knot in his cheap tie was loosened and the top button of his shirt undone. He was tanned a rich bronze, must have been somewhere recently with more sun than the grim north, and the unruly curls of his hair glowed chestnut in the ugly fluorescent light. He had an intriguing birthmark on his throat and a scattering of moles on his cheek, flaws in amber. He looked like he should be outdoors, blending into the brown hues of the woods, or the golden palette of the beach.

And Zayn felt too small again. Small, and pale, and wiry. He was a mass of tattoos and piercings that glittered in the grudging light. _Keep away_ , he blatantly tried to warn the world. _Just keep the fuck away_.

‘Should I remember you?’ Zayn asked the man who was still standing too close, expectation pouring off him.

The man shrugged, disappointment written all too clearly over his face, still bearing the softness of youth beneath his stubble. He looked down at the stained, cracked tiles of the floor, bashful despite his size. Running his hand forward over his hair, his curls flattened against his forehead. ‘No, I just –’

And it hit Zayn with a rush, ‘Luke – no, Liam, right? You moved here from… Wolverhampton? When we were, like, fourteen or summat?’

The man looked up, something achingly hopeful lighting up his eyes. He nodded, a small smile creeping across the fullness of his lips.

‘What the fuck are you doing here, man? You had almost as bad a time as I did. The twats here bullied you too, treated you like shit. I never really knew why, you were, like, harmless. Maybe that was why they did it…’

Liam shrugged, pain flickering through his eyes for a moment. ‘People can just tell when someone’s different, you know? I teach P.E. here now, coach football and stuff. Keeps me out of trouble. And I try make things better for the kids here now, when I can.’

‘Yeah? So you never escaped, huh?’ Zayn said, what little tact he'd ever had long since burnt away.

Liam's wilting smile dropped away completely.

Zayn quickly added, ‘But like, I didn’t get away either really, not fully, not inside where it counts. Doesn’t matter what else I've done, I’m still back here hiding in the bogs like I used to.’

‘I saw you on telly though. “Zayn Malik: Writer”, it said on the screen.’ While Liam spoke, a moment's excitement lit up his eyes before he glanced away again.

‘Yeah, well, I’m doing okay I guess. But, like, being here, brings it all flooding back, all the bullshit. Half the motherfuckers we went to school with are in prison, a few are dead, but they’re all still haunting me. I still hear them. Hear all the shit they used to call me. When we finished sixth form I ran away to uni and never dared look back, tried to forget. But it never worked.’

‘I’m sorry. I mean, that I never did anything to help you back then. I knew what was going on, I just…’ Liam words gave up and faded away. He bit his lip, looking so young, looking like he was falling helplessly into the past too.

Zayn shrugged. ‘You couldn’t even save yourself. And we never had many classes together, right? Like, I got fast tracked a lot –’

‘And I didn’t,’ Liam said with a self-deprecating shrug. ‘I struggled a lot back then. But I’m doing better now.’ He stood a little straighter, seemed to be trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

Zayn had to shove his hands into his pockets to stop himself reaching out to comfort him. ‘I can see you are,’ he said, trying to sound more reassuring than he felt. His gaze travelled down Liam’s body, taking in the solid mass of muscles straining against his ill-fitting suit. Zayn’s mouth watered a little as he lingered over Liam’s low riding trousers, and the intriguingly impressive bulge of his dick underneath…

Realising with a start that he was staring, and remembering how he’d gotten beaten up for less in this very room, Zayn’s jaw clenched again. A challenging look flickered to life in the shifting hazel of his eyes. ‘I saw you watching me a lot back then, yeah? Whenever they forced me to do sports and shit. I used to watch you back. I figured either you hated me for being a Pak– being Asian and Muslim too, or you wanted to shag me. I always wanted to ask you which, but I never had the guts to speak to you.’

Liam’s brow furrowed again and he backed away further. ‘I never hated you. I just… I just fancied you a bit, you know? But I didn’t know what to do about it then, not for years afterwards either, really.’

Zayn swallowed, the tension seeping away again. ‘Yeah? Like, me either. I didn’t know how to handle it either I mean, being – being queer and stuff. That’s still a work in progress for me. Can't believe I'm saying it here… You should have said summat back then, I always thought you were fit.’

‘Yeah?’ Liam asked, looking too bright and hopeful.

And the world came to a halt, the room fading away. Sometimes, Zayn knew, good came from bad. The horror of the time he did here had left him with a scorching anger that made his writing burn brightly. His pain bled into his words, and he wrote them in the scarlet ink of his own blood. And here, in this place that had scarred and almost crushed him, this open face looked at him. Looked at him with warm eyes, sympathy and need shining out of them like a lighthouse leading him back to shore.

Zayn took a deep breath, and was hit by the stench of decades of shit and desperation.

‘Listen, I’ve had enough of this place. Wanna get out of here? Go find a pub? And not talk about the past. Like, at all. Ever. Just the future, yeah?’

Liam’s relieved grin was terrifyingly irresistible and Zayn smiled back. He didn’t think he’d ever smiled in all the years he spent here.

‘Yeah – yeah I’d like that,’ Liam said. He held the door open for Zayn and followed him out. ‘I read you live in London, right? But if you’re staying a few days I could, you know, show you around, show you things that have changed, and –”

Liam kept talking as they made their way outside, ignoring the expectant glances from their old teachers who never gave a fuck, and new students with their own battles to fight. Zayn blanked them all out, faced down his demons. Liam’s hand a reassuring weight against his back, the warmth of it reminding him that there were other ways to burn.

‘Hmmm,’ Zayn murmured, not really listening to Liam’s endless stream of words as they emerged into the pink glow of the sun as it began to slowly dip beneath the horizon. He would listen later. He had a feeling he would be learning everything there was to learn about Liam, but right now he just let the words soak into his skin.

The spring evening was mild, and a light breeze brought down white petals that fell like snowflakes from the trees edging the car park. The scent of freshly mown grass overpowered the petrol fumes.

A hand on his arm brought him to a sudden halt.

‘I said this is my car,’ Liam inclined his head towards an old, boxy little car, its mismatched paintwork sparklingly clean. ‘Where shall we go?’

Zayn shrugged. ‘Anywhere. We can go wherever the fuck we want, right? Do whatever we want?’

Liam nodded, smiling that breathtaking smile again. He opened the door for Zayn then closed it for him, before getting into the driver's seat and haltingly pulling away. And the past, finally disappearing behind them in the rearview mirror, didn’t look quite so scary anymore.

** _The end_ **


End file.
